Why won't 'sharing economy' companies go public?

Andreessen Horowitz recently shared their bull case on the Venture Capital Tech market.

The presentation of information is slanted, but it's still worth a view.  One of the key points made is this big shift to VC funding as opposed to IPO'ing.

Sharing economy companies are one of the largest growth stories in VC land.  With that, comes the perception the public markets just aren't as attractive as they used to be.  Is that true?  What's less attractive about the public markets?  Why is that?

Private markets are still nowhere near as efficient or liquid as public markets.  That said, it's seemingly becoming easier for private companies to access capital.

Then of course there's the glaring major downsides to being public:  being more in the public eye and having your financials open for the world to see.

Seemingly every week Uber or AirBnB or Instacart are getting higher private valuations. Every now and then, we get a peak at the underlying financials.  The latest provided by Uber's term sheet in a recent bond offering noting hundreds of millions in operating losses.  Which leads us to a meaningful quote.

"The ride-sharing company co-founded by Travis Kalanick remains fiercely secretive about its financial performance, even with prospective investors."

First off, everybody should be secretive about their financial performance as it builds the allure to potential investors.

Second, the name of the sharing economy game is fast expansion.  Thought leaders in the industry suggest customer loyalty will be won locally across the country and globe.  It's going to take years of massive losses to even compete, let alone win.

So you wonder...are these business models sustainable with the immense competition out there?  Is the idea to just create broad economic value and produce just enough cash flow to get by like Amazon?  Can that even be replicated in various businesses?

What's wild is we haven't even gotten to the fact that eventually these companies (in numerous cases) built largely of 'independent contractors' are going to face regulation at some point.  If history is any guide, they'll be largely over-regulated at first.

Shielding themselves from the scrutiny of the public is so important for the industry.  That combined with the incentive to keep things on the down-low outweighs everything else at this point.  We'll see how long it takes before that changes!